Feedback for July 2006

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Comment:

This is really a
very interesting site. Good work. I hope you can help me with
some questions. In the first paragraph of the answer to young
earth proof 21 you mention three coincidences: that
thickness correlates with increased age of the sea floor as
determined by radiometric dating as well as the known rate at
which the Atlantic is widening. I would be pleased if you
could give me some references for that.

I do not know what to think about the RATE paper about
radiocarbon dating.(see here: RATE
on C-14)Are there major mistakes in ist? Were their results
posted to a journal? (see: Poster
presented AGU. I read your article about carbon-14 in coal
deposits, but that does not help much in refuting that paper I
think.

If the strong force is lowered as RATE proposed to accelerate
nuclear decay, doesn't that mean, that a lot of more elements
would become radioactive? If so, would there be any possibility
to detect that some elements were radioactive in the past and now
are not? What about other consequences of that?

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Response:

The best single
chronometric book for general readers I know of is by G. Brent
Dalrymple, "The Age of the Earth" 1991: Stanford University
Press. There you will find all the citations to the early efforts
to estimate the age of the Earth, and why they failed. The
magnetic and radiometric data regarding the Mid-atlantic Ridge
System is closely examined by Alan P. Dickin in his book,
"Radiogenic Isotope Geology" (2000 Cambridge University Press),
particularly in his chapter 10, on potasium/argon dating.

The major error made by Baumgardner et al is that the
detection of any trace of C14 is evidence of a young Earth and a
recent global flood as told in Genesis. There are secondary
errors as well. Examples include failure to account for multiple
generation paths of C14, and that are also multiple means by
which C14 can be introduced into a geological sample such as
coal. Their most absurd suggestion is "... that carbon never
cycled through living organisms..." The well known biological
carbon isotopic fractionation (the different ratios of C12 and
C13 in different plant groups first suggested by H. Craig in
1954) destroys such sillyness.

The consequences of playing around with the funadamental
forces via deus ex machina can not be countered by
science, because there is nothing to show that God could not have
performed miracles with or without external signs. When, like the
RATE group, you start tossing miracles around there is no limit
to what you can pretend might happen, and speculation is
pointless.

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Comment:

I read the
correspondence in the May 06 Feedback regarding the suggestion
that “I believe that children should be able to choose what
to think is right”. I was reminded of a speech Mayor
Bloomberg is said to have made. The John Hopkins' motto is
Veritas vos liberabit, "the truth shall set you free" and not
"you shall be free to set the truth."

To preface, I just want to mention that while I love science,
as a field of study to understanding things, I also do believe in
God and that this universe and all we see was created.

Basically my comment is this. Whether or not those of you who
write these articles and study these topics truly believe that
there isn't a God, I find it amazing that you still promote the
idea of evolution/Darwinism. There is an incredible lack of
evidence for evolution, added to the fact that there is a
plethora of evidence against it. Why then don't you abandon the
idea as a failed theory and just come up with a new theory for
how life came to exist here in such astounding diversity and
uniqueness? I know that a personal conviction in a God-less life
is not going to allow room for the idea of creation and I
understand that, but for crying out loud look at how flawed and
naive evolution is in light of all of the gained knowledge since
Darwin's time. Move on, postulate new theories. I'd say that the
smartest moment in a person's life, is not when they study an
element of a greater thing and postulate an intelligent sounding
theory based on that element, but rather when they see the thing
as a whole and can drop their pride and say "I don't know how it
all works."

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Response:

This is addressed
as creationist claim CA342.
We also keep a record here of the terms of Walter Brown's Debate Offer.
There's no reason to accept such a bizarre offer; Brown is a very
minor player in the whole creationist circus. If you can't figure
it out for yourself by looking at his notion of what the debate
would involve, then see also More on Walter Brown's debate
offer. This also gives links to the experiences of Joe Meert
in attempting to set up a debate with Brown, and it shows that
Brown is unwilling to engage in straightforward debate in open
forums.

Brown's errors and confusions are being addressed very nicely;
and he mainly seems to be using a highly indiosyncratic and
unrealistic debate offer as an excuse for not engaging criticisms
in place right now. See, for example, Fossil Hominids: Response to In the
Beginning.

Would you care to
comment on the bruhaha over species extinction? It seems to me
that with macro-evolution creating new species, the extinction of
existing species becomes a moot point. Since the history of the
earth is evolution, extinction, evolution, extinction, it seems
scientifically obvious that nature takes care of itself.
Evolution of new species cannot be stopped, so why do we get so
bent out shape over species extinction? Thanks.

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Response:

I feel that there
are two ways to view this. First is mere aesthetics- we are
destroying species faster than we can record them.

The other perspective is more practical. The practical
observation begins that top predators are vulnerable to species
loss from below, and that humans are the top predator of the
entire globe. We can quite possibly undercut our own existence.
Further, most of our favorite foods, and essential medicines are
natural products and there are many reasons to believe that there
are many more yet to be discovered. The faster we destroy species
the less likely such discoveries are.

A final consideration is religious, and while I take exception
to some of his arguemnts, Ray Bohlin's article on Christian
Environmentalism covers most of the basic positions. (Note
that even after 14 years Bohlin's argument has failed to attract
the religious right).

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Comment:

[Uploader's note: this comment uses Chinese special characters. It
is possible that some browsers will not properly display them.]

I have proof that
the Big Flood did occur. The ancient Chinese recorded this
catastrophic happening in the ancient form (AF) of the language.
The AF of big flood (洪) shows earth, waters, hands held
together and 8 persons. The AF of arc (船) shows a boat and
8 persons. The AF of along (沿) shows 8 persons floating on
waters.

The Chinese ancestors employed 3 principles in making words,
Photographic or word-picture, ideographic and phonetic
principles. The word arc (船) has the same phonetic sound
as pass on (傳). The word along (沿) has the same
phonetic sound as continue (延). With the Noah's family of
8 surviving the big flood on the arc, human history can pass on.
And with the Noah's family of 8 floating on waters, human history
can continue until today.

Now the word island (島), it is made up of bird
(鳥)and mountain (山).Why?

It is recorded in the Bible that 'Noah and his 3 sons Shem.
Ham and Japheth, his wife and the 3 wives of his sons entered the
arc (Genesis 7:13). The waters prevailed, were increased greatly
upon the earth and the arc went upon the face of the waters (G
7:18). And Noah sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters
were abated from off the face of the ground (G 8:8). What more
proof do you want. If you could prove me wrong, I am willing to
renounce christianity. If not, get baptised immediately.

In addition, Bill Jefferys wrote a long discussion about the
claims regarding the "ark" character in
this USEnet article.

In short, the claim rests on ignorance of how Chinese
characters are formed, and deception regarding the likely origin
of this particular one. As one of Bill's quoted sources
notes:

Some have tried to prove that this character
indicates that the Chinese knew about Noah's ark as it is made up
of a boat and eight persons. Pa^1 Kou^3. This is only useful to
aid in remembering how to write the character, as it is of modern
construction, not much over 2000 years ago---long after the
deluge.

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Response:

The trilobite is
real, but the "footprint" was formed by spalling, a natural
geologic process, not by feet. Similar spalling patterns which do
not resemble footprints so much are common in that area. A little
more information, plus references, may be found at CC102 in the Index to Creationist
Claims.

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Comment:

YOUR ARTICLES MAKE
ANYONE BELIEVING IN CREATION OUT TO BE INFERIOR IN INTELLIGENCE.
WHEN IN TRUTH THE DISCOVERIES BY SCIENCE HAS MADE IT ALMOST
IMPOSSIBLE TO BELIEVE THAT EVOLUTION EVER HAPPENED. IT TAKES MORE
FAITH TODAY TO BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION THAN IT DOES TO BELIEVE THAT
GOD CREATED THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING IN IT. WHY NOT JUST ADMIT
THAT EVOLUTION IS A THEORY WITH VERY LITTLE SUPPORT FROM THE
FOSSIL RECORD OR MATHEMATICS, ASTRONOMY,BIOLOGY, PHYSICS AND
COSMOLOGY. YOU CAN TRY AND MAKE A RELIGION OUT OF EVOLUTION BUT
YOU WILL ONLY LOOK FOOLISH. GOD IS ALIVE AND WELL TODAY AND
BECOMING MORE SO WITH EACH NEW SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

Well, I hope that
you keep trying to stay current with those discoveries. And, I
hope that you learn how to use your keyboard and the "shift" key.
And finally, I hope that if you ever come to any understanding of
science or scipture, you might recall that you wasted these
electrons. As Paul is said to have written;

Hebrews 5: 11. About this we have much to say that is hard
to explain, since you have become dull in understanding. 12. For
though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to
teach you again the basic elements of the principles of God. You
need milk, not solid food; 13. for everyone who lives on milk,
being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness.
14. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties
have been trained by practice to distinguish good from
evil.

In this article Dr. Lisle states that "it has been my
aspiration to develop a resource that will do for astronomy what
The Genesis Flood did for geology."

This is an excerpt from Dr. Lisle's book 'Taking Back
Astronomy'

The moon moves about an inch and a half further away from
the earth every year due to this tidal interaction. Thus, the
moon would have been closer to the earth in the past. Six
thousand years ago, the moon would have been about 800 feet (250
m) closer to the earth (which is not much of a change considering
the moon is a quarter of a million miles, or 400,000 km, away).
So this “spiraling away” of the moon is not a problem
over the biblical timescale of six thousand years. If, however,
the earth and moon were over four billion years old (as big bang
supporters teach), then we would have big problems. This is
because the moon would have been so close, that it would actually
have been touching the earth less than 1.5 billion years ago.
This suggests that the moon can’t possibly be as old as
secular astronomers claim.

Dr. Lisle has made an elementary error in the above excerpt.
While he is correct for his (approximate) distance of 250 m after
6,000 year calculation, he seems to have dropped a
‘0’ for the time for the Earth and Moon to touch.

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Comment:

I have never read
something so funny! These men try to search and search and SEARCH
for an explanation for everything! And yet, still - have no
proof, no evidence and when trying to attempt an explantion,
sound completely lost! Many evolutionists believe in God... tell
me then, if you belive in God- why do you think he made you? For
nothing? for His pleasure possibly? Or maybe he just made you to
figure out that we all came from a good `ole slug or a monkey??
Amazing! It's like you're trying to gain wisdom from the things
that God Himself has set before you, and then searching for a
reason that it's here! What a silly game. If you believe in God-
just ask Him to show you truth and He will! God created man in
his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and
female he created them. You don't have to be a scientist to
understand that. We'll see truth soon enough.... soon
enough!

May I suggest
someone check out all of Walt Brown's credentials. I have just
discovered he lied about being a former director of Benet Labs.
He lists his credentials here: http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/

As I know a formet director of that lab, I decided to see if
he was also a director and emailed them today. I received this
prompt reply a few hours later:

Walter Brown was not a director of Benet Labs. I believe he
was a military officer here (during the 60's? 70's?) and might
have been designated as acting director for short periods of time
(a day here, a day there...) when the director at that time was
out of the office. I ran across his website quite a few years ago
and oddly enough, our Admin Office was doing a plaque listing our
directors at that same time. I contacted Dr. Brown at that time.
Dr. Brown is not listed on the plaque.

First of all
thanks for the great site. I've become very interested in the
subject of creationism and I've found all the answers I've needed
for the questions I've had about Evolution. Kudos.

This may be beyond the scope of this site but here's my
question anyway: How does the Theory of Evolution deal with
deliberate breeding? Race horses, farm animals and dogs have been
extensivly breed and altered over the years by human hands. Can
the theory take those kinds of actions into account? Would there
anyway of noticing if, say, dinosaurs were specifically bred by a
more intelligent speices? Selective breeding isn't really that
natural unless humans are counted at the environment (which I
suppose they should be). Does the predictive power of the theory
break down in such situations?

The fool hath said
in his heart, "There is no God." You are a fool! Just remember
the operative word in the theory of evolution, it is THEORY. And
you believe a theory! There are many answers in Genesis and I
hope you find the truth some day. I am not interested in anything
you have to say so do not respond to my comments. It will just go
into my junk e-mail folder and I never look at junk e-mail, I
just flush it.

In last month's
feedback, May 2006, someone pointed out the existence of a
creation wiki. Mark Isaak implied that they would not be
correcting the articles because "Contributing editors must
believe the universe and life on earth were created by God."

But even though you won't be correcting their articles, would
you ever consider making a list of rebuttals to their rebuttals
of your index to creationist claims?

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Response:

I considered doing
that, and even planned to do it at one point, but decided against
it for two reasons. First, rebutting everything the Creationwiki
says would take all of my time and then some. Second, the effort
would accomplish little. Almost all of what they say is either
rebutted already in one form or another (for example, CA100, on
the argument from incredulity, covers a lot of ground), or the
points are so insignificant that few people would care about
them. If we start filling the site with arguments that are found
in the Creationwiki and nowhere else, we may distract people from
the responses to arguments that are in common use by
creationists.

And, of course, rebutting the rebuttals of rebuttals, ad
infinitum, would only compound both of these problems.

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Comment:

Re: Claim CI 101
on complexity and design. I think this could be stronger.
Complexity and design are uncorrelated as designed objects like
pins, plates and paperclips indicate. Also, none of the complex
human artefacts we are now familiar with are products of a single
designer but the outcomes of social processes in which numerous
agents with different agenadas and roles have participated,
sometimes over many generations. Paley's watchmaker was but the
last in a line of clock & watchmakers and his own innovation
may have been quite trivial, while some parts of the watch would
have been supplied by others. The choice is not design vs chance
but conscious single-agent design vs chance vs multi-agent design
(which may or may not be fully conscious of the outcome and which
is, in effect, what evolution proposes). So actually the more
complex an object the LESS likely it is to have had a single
designer. Design implies three things: an external designer, an
object, a purpose for the designer. The first and second imply
the third, the second and third imply the first, but the Arg.from
D. falls because the existence of the first is the point at issue
and there is no obvious third, only the objects themselves.

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Comment:

I think your
origins archive having collaborated comments, articles and other
documents over the Creation/Evolution debate is a superb idea. A
website combining so much material makes it convenient for
purposes of either research or personal inquiry. The site has
great organization and offers itself to be very resourceful.

Why is it that
lower forms of life coexist with higher forms? How come bacteria
stopped at being bacteria, flies stopped at being flies, and
humans stopped at being humans? This is a question that I haven't
been able to figure out yet. Thanks.

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Response:

The assumption in
your question is that if a life form can change to become
something "higher" it will, but that is not what the theory of
evolution predicts. Any life form that can do well in its
environment will remain more or less the same. Bacteria do very
well indeed - it is estimated that most living things are
bacterial or single celled (Bacteria are only one kind of single
celled organism) and ecological systems rely on them to survive.
For instance, while you have a trillion or so cells in your body,
you require about ten times that much of single celled organisms
in your gut and elsewhere to survive.

All species are well adapted to their conditions of life.
Flies do very well at their business, bacteria do very well at
theirs, and so on. Evolution predicts that they will change only
if they stop doing well at surviving in new conditions.

But moreover, each kind of organism has changed.
Despite claims that there are "living fossils", these are
different species to the ones found in the fossil record.
Bacteria are constantly evolving, as are flies, mammals, and even
humans. Evolution is always local, though - there's no goal to
evolution, just adaptation to local conditions and the effects of
chance.

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Comment:

About Carl Wieland
and his article 'Dinosaur bones: Just how old are they really?'

Where he writes:

"But this common picture is misleading. A recent book,
co-authored by a world expert on dinosaurs, points out some
things about dinosaur bones that are of great interest to
creationists. (...) The amount of time that it takes for a bone
to become completely permineralized is highly variable. If the
groundwater is heavily laden with minerals in solution, the
process can happen rapidly. Modern bones that fall into mineral
springs can become permineralized within a matter of weeks.
1"

And makes this conclusion:

"The Bible’s account of the true history of the world
makes it clear that no fossil can be more than a few thousand
years old. Dinosaur bones give evidence strongly consistent with
this."

The '1' refers to Currie's and Eva Koppelhus' book.

Link Where Currie point out, that dinosaurs existed in a
period from 225 to 65 mill. year from now.

I asked Currie about his comment, and got this answer:

"Hi Jerry

We have been aware of this article for quite some time. They
quoted us correctly, but of course offer their own interpretation
of the facts. It is very typical that creationists offer half the
story, but don't provide the half that contradicts their claims.
In this case, they fail to mention all the bones that have turned
to stone.

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Comment:

Thanks for your
work! I just read an excellent article from one of your authors
who tracked down a false creationist claim about lack of red
dwarf stars from an HST scan. I am a Christian, but not a
young-earth creationist. It angers me to see the dishonest spread
of rumor that goes on...from both sides of the fence. If both
sides would stick to good science and good referencing many
problems would be solved. I have a request... I just found an
address of four popular young-earth dating methods on your site.
I ask that someone address a few other (about 50 in all :) )
methods listed at the following site:

This link begins two parts of an address of methods to arrive
at a young age for the earth. As a basically amateur scientist
(only B.S. in Biology) I can account for some problems, but many
of the astrology/cosmology methods go beyond my understanding. An
address of at least some of these would be wonderful.

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Comment:

Soft tissue has
been found in dinosaur bones. Is it possible that such soft
tissue could not contain carbon 14? If it does contain carbon 14
(which I assume it does)does it not at least prove that that
particular animal lived within the last few thousand years?
Lastly, is it reasonable to believe that soft tissue could be
preserved for millions of years?

Read them, and if you still have questions I suggest that you
address them to the principal scientist of this research,
Professor Mary
Schweitzer. She should be both willing and able to answer all
creationist claims based on her reportage of dinosaur "soft
tissue."

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Comment:

You keep talking
about facts, facts, facts of evolution, and that everyone thats
smart believes its a fact. Yet you provide no facts other than to
say everyone who is smart believes its a fact. Most of the recent
"facts" have been unmasked as frauds like embreo drawings, the
painted spotted finches, Leakeys fake skull, etc, etc. No serious
theory would resort to this amout of fakery and isolation from
competition. Evolution may turn out to be true but I wouldn't bet
on it.

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Response:

The facts are the
actual embryos, the actual finches, and the myriad actual fossil
skulls of human ancestors. If you really believe that there is a
secret evil conspiracy among all the world's biologists and
paleontologists to misreport what they see, you are welcome to go
and look at the finches, embryos, and fossils for yourself. In
fact, please do so regardless.

The embryo drawings have
been covered here. I have no idea what you mean by "Leakey's fake
skull" or "painted spotted finches." Do you?

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Comment:

I have a problem
with a certain set of terms and I'm wondering what you think. I
am currently only an undergrad (in Marine Biology), but I
personally see little use for and have even a slight resentment
toward the distinction of "micro-" and "macro-" evolution.

I first encountered the distinction when debating creationists
online, and almost every time I heard it since, it was in
relation to their ignorant drivel. As a matter of fact, this
website is the only non-creationist example I can think of that
uses this distinction. (Of course, I could be wrong.)

So my question is; is this a real distinction actual
biologists use in the course of their studies? To me it seems
like a creationist attempt to deliberately isolate substances
that are a problem for them from the bigger picture, thereby
making them easier to attack. I do not think there is any point
in giving seperate names to what ultimately is merely different
extents of the very same process.

It is an authentic
distinction in science, although creationists use it wrongly. But
there is a revision to the Macroevolution FAQ listed above on the
way.

It is an open question whether macroevolution is just
microevolution writ large. Some scientists think it is, others
don't. I think it is, but add to the mix that macroevolution
involves processes that we can't include in simple models of
population-level change.